The Midwife's Longed-For Baby Read online

  ‘How come you were available to locum anyway?’ she asked without preamble. ‘I’d imagined you tucked up in a nice little consultant’s post somewhere picturesque.’

  Probably with another woman. She didn’t add that, because he was trying to pour oil on troubled waters and it wouldn’t help at all if she threw petrol on the fire instead. And besides, it was none of her business any more who he chose to sleep with.

  He glanced down, stirring his coffee on autopilot even though she knew it wouldn’t have sugar in it.

  ‘I didn’t want to tie myself down,’ he said, finally putting the spoon back in the saucer and meeting her eyes again. ‘After I left here, I just wanted to get away, let the dust settle, work out where I wanted to go. I thought maybe New Zealand, but my parents are still alive and they’re getting older, so I took a two-month locum post covering maternity leave fairly close to them while I worked out what I wanted to do, and then when that was coming to an end they asked me to cover the fertility clinic until it shut because the services were being centralised and the consultant had left, so I did. I saw my last patients two days ago, on the day Ben rang, and I had nothing else lined up, so I’m here.’

  ‘Why on earth did you say yes?’

  ‘To Ben? Because I need a job, so I can eat and keep a roof over both our heads.’

  She felt another pang of guilt. ‘I didn’t mean that, Nick, but if the mortgage is an issue—’

  ‘It’s not an issue, Liv, it’s a fact, and I’m not going to make you homeless under any circumstances so let’s just ignore that. So what did you mean?’

  ‘I was talking about the fertility clinic job. I couldn’t believe it when Ben told me that’s what you’d been doing. It seems such an odd choice to make, under the circumstances, and I couldn’t understand why on earth you’d do it.’

  His eyes flicked away, then back to hers, curiously intent. ‘Because I needed a job, as I said, and I was already in the hospital, I’d made a few friends, it meant I wouldn’t have to relocate—and maybe, also, because I thought it might help me understand what had happened to us.’

  Her heart thumped. ‘And did it?’

  He smiled sadly. ‘Well, let’s just say it made it blindingly obvious that we weren’t the only couple struggling.’

  His expression wasn’t guarded now, just full of regret, and she lowered her head, unable to hold those clear grey eyes that seemed to see to the bottom of her insecurities.

  ‘How about you?’ he asked softly. ‘What have you been up to since I went?’

  She picked up her spoon and chased the froth on her cappuccino, stalling just as he had. ‘What I’m doing now, pretty much. What did you expect?’

  ‘I didn’t. I had no idea what you’d want to do.’

  Cry? She’d done so much of that after he’d gone, but she wasn’t telling him that, although he could probably work it out. Fix it? Impossible, because the thing that had been wrong was the thing they hadn’t been able to fix, so she’d just got on with her life, putting one foot in front of the other, not even trying to make sense of it because there wasn’t any sense to be made.

  ‘I didn’t want to do anything,’ she said sadly, watching the froth slide off the spoon. ‘I just wanted peace, that was all. Peace, contentment, and the satisfaction of a job well done instead of the endless spectre of failure—’

  ‘You didn’t fail, Liv!’

  She dropped the spoon with a clatter. ‘Really? So what would you call it? Month after month, all our hopes and dreams flushed away—and then, just to rub my nose in it, you go off and sleep with your ex. That doesn’t exactly make it a success in my book—’

  She pushed back her chair, grabbed her bag and walked swiftly away from him, out of the café into the park, hauling in the cold air as if she’d just come up from the bottom of the ocean.

  Don’t cry! Whatever you do, don’t cry—

  ‘Liv! Liv, wait!’

  She turned and looked up at him, right behind her, his grey eyes troubled, and she had the crazy urge to throw herself into his arms and sob her heart out.

  Don’t cry!

  ‘Leave it, Nick,’ she said, hoping her voice didn’t show her desperation. ‘Just leave it. I don’t mind working with you, I said that to Ben, and I’m sure we can keep it professional, but I don’t need any cosy chats or in-depth analysis of where it all went wrong for us. We both know exactly where it all went wrong, and if I’d gone to the conference with you that weekend then you would never have slept with Suzanne—’

  ‘I didn’t sleep with her.’

  She stared at him, stunned. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, I didn’t sleep with her.’

  Shock robbed her of breath.

  ‘I don’t believe you. You’re lying!’

  ‘No, I’m not, Liv. I didn’t touch her. Honestly.’

  She took a step back, struggling for air, for sense, for understanding, but they all eluded her.

  ‘That’s not true. It can’t be true. Why would you suddenly come out with this now?’

  ‘Because it is true, and I should have told you at the time.’

  How did he do that with his eyes? Make them appear utterly unguarded and shining with sincerity?

  ‘But—you admitted it!’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t Liv, I just confirmed that she’d spent the night with me in my room,’ he told her. ‘That was what you asked me, and I said yes because it was the truth. She did spend the night in there with me. You didn’t ask why, though, or what for, because by the time I came home you’d spoken to Beth, you’d found the note Suze had left in my luggage and you had me hung, drawn and quartered and hung out to dry before I even stepped over the threshold, so you wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

  ‘You just assumed I’d slept with her,’ he went on, his voice heavy and tinged with sadness, ‘and I let you, because in that split second I felt that you’d thrown me a lifeline, a way out of a marriage that was tearing us both apart, so I just grabbed it and ran. And I’m sorry. I should never have done that to you. I should have told you the truth there and then, and made you listen.’

  His words stunned her, the shockwaves rolling through her, bringing a sob to her throat.

  ‘How could you do that?’ she asked, her voice a strangled whisper. ‘How could you let me believe that for all this time? I’ve spent a whole, agonising year believing that you slept with her, that I wasn’t enough for you, that you didn’t truly love me any more—you’re right, you should have told me the truth then, Nick, instead of letting me think that you’d spent the night making love to—’

  She broke off, unable to say her name. ‘You let me end our marriage, on the grounds that you’d slept with that whore—’

  His eyes hardened. ‘She’s not a whore, she’s a friend, a damn good friend, who told me to pull myself together and go home and sort out my marriage.’

  A sob rose in her throat, threatening to choke her, but she crushed it down and pulled herself together. ‘Well, you did a great job of that—’

  Her voice cracked and she pushed past him, shaking his hand off as he tried to stop her. She went back inside, cutting through the café to the main hospital corridor, then out on the other side bordering the car park, deliberately going the wrong way to throw him off the scent and lose him because if she had to spend another moment in his company she was going to cry, and she wasn’t prepared to give him the satisfaction.

  So she kept on going, and she didn’t stop until she was back on the ward.

  * * *

  She’d gone.

  The corridor was empty and he stood there, kicking himself for letting the conversation stray into such dangerous territory—especially in a public place and right in the middle of the working day.

  Idiot!

  He had to talk to her
, to explain why he’d let her believe what she had, how he’d felt, why he hadn’t stood his ground and told her the truth at the time. The real reason.

  But not now. This afternoon he had a—mercifully short—elective list, so his first port of call was the wards, to make sure Judy Richards was settled in, and to meet the patients he was going to operate on and read through their notes before he was due in Theatre. And if he was lucky, Liv’s shift would be well and truly over by the time he’d finished.

  He’d go and see her at home later, to apologise, to explain, to try and help her understand.

  If he could get her to listen, and judging by the way she’d just reacted, that was by no means a foregone conclusion.

  * * *

  Liv was tied up in a delivery for the afternoon, the nice straightforward labour of a woman having her sixth baby. She’d haemorrhaged after the last so she’d been admitted directly to the consultant-led unit with this one just in case, but so far everything was going fine.

  Just as well, because Liv’s concentration was totally shot.

  How could he have done that to her? Let her believe he’d betrayed her like that if he hadn’t? And why then, when she’d just found out that yet again she wasn’t pregnant, so she’d been at her most vulnerable? She’d spent over a year living with the bone-deep certainty that he’d been unfaithful to her, and now she didn’t know what to believe—

  ‘I need to push.’

  ‘OK, Karen. Nice and steady. That’s good.’

  But Karen’s baby wasn’t going for nice and steady, and three minutes later, half an hour before the end of Liv’s shift, a lusty, squalling baby was delivered into her father’s waiting hands.

  ‘It’s a girl,’ he said, laughing and crying as he lay their daughter in his wife Karen’s outstretched arms. ‘Finally, it’s a girl!’

  Liv’s eyes filled, and she had to blink away the tears as she gave Karen the oxytocin injection to help her uterus to contract down.

  If this had been them, if she’d been able to give him a child, then maybe that would have been enough to keep him...

  Liv checked the baby quickly as she lay in her mother’s arms, making sure that all was well, but the baby was lovely and pink, her pulse steady and strong, her skinny little arms and legs moving beautifully. She’d stopped crying now and was staring up at her mother, riveted by the first face she’d ever seen.

  It was a beautiful moment, one Liv never tired of seeing, and she watched the two of them staring into each other’s eyes and falling in love and felt a familiar lump in her throat.

  ‘Apgar score ten at one minute,’ she said, her voice miraculously steady. ‘Congratulations. She’s lovely.’

  She checked her again four minutes later, by which time the cord had stopped pulsating, so Liv clamped and cut it and handed the baby back to her mother.

  ‘I take it this is your first girl?’

  Her father’s grin was wry. ‘Yes, so hopefully we can stop now. Six is getting a little crazy, but we did want a girl so we thought we’d have one last try.’

  ‘We may live to regret it when she hits puberty,’ Karen said with a laugh, her hands cradling the naked baby tenderly at her breast.

  Liv laid a warm towel back over them both and tucked it round the baby. ‘She’ll be fine, and she’ll have all those big brothers to look after her. She’s latched on well,’ Liv added, struck yet again by the miracle of birth and the naturalness of this wonderful bond between mother and child. The bond she would never know...

  ‘Yes, and thank goodness I’ve never had any problems with feeding any of them,’ Karen said with a laugh. ‘There’s way too much to do in our house without sterilising bottles and making up feeds. Ooh, I can feel a contraction.’

  ‘OK, Karen, that’s good, you’re nearly done. Gentle push for me when you’re ready?’ she said calmly, but Liv felt her heart rate pick up, because this was the moment, as the placenta separated from the uterine wall, that the haemorrhage would happen, and she really, really didn’t feel ready for that.

  Didn’t feel ready for any more stress today, and the last thing she needed was Nick striding in there to take over like the cavalry after he’d just destabilised her fragile status quo with that bombshell about Suzanne.

  Concentrate!

  The haemorrhage didn’t happen. To everyone’s huge relief, the placenta came away cleanly with hardly any blood loss, so after they’d sorted Karen out and Liv was happy that her uterus was contracting down well and that all was as it should be, she left the other midwife to fill out the notes and headed for the changing room, only an hour late.

  Tomorrow was Saturday, and with any luck she wouldn’t run into Nick again today which meant she was unlikely to see him again until Monday. That would give her two clear days to get her emotions in order.

  Except it didn’t, because she walked out of the lift at the bottom of the building and ran slap into him.

  ‘Sorry—’

  She stepped hastily back, and they stood transfixed in awkward silence as the lift doors hissed shut behind her, cutting off her retreat.

  ‘I gather your delivery was all right?’ he asked, breaking the silence. ‘I’ve been on standby in case she haemorrhaged again.’

  ‘Oh—yes, it was fine, thanks. No problems. How’s Judy Richards?’

  ‘Settling in. I think I’ve reassured her.’ He paused, his eyes searching hers. ‘Look, Liv, are you done for the day?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said firmly, holding his eyes with a determined effort and clutching her coat in her arms like a shield. ‘And I’m going home.’

  ‘Can we talk?’

  Her heart sank. ‘Again? Nick, there’s nothing you have to say that I need to hear. If there’s a shred of truth in what you said, you should have told me then, not saved it for now, and I really don’t want to discuss it. For heaven’s sake, just leave it. It’s not relevant any more anyway.’

  She pushed past him and walked out of the door, but of course he couldn’t leave it, could he? She could barely hear his footsteps behind her but she knew he was there, his voice calling her name as she made her way across the car park, but it was almost drowned out by the pounding of her heart.

  She dodged between the rows of cars, reached the kerb by the access road to the main car park and was about to cross it when she felt his hand on her arm.

  ‘Liv, please, let me talk to you. Give me a chance to explain.’

  But she’d had enough to deal with already today, so she turned back to face him and shook her head. ‘No. I can’t do this now just to ease your guilty conscience, Nick, and I’m not going to. Please, just leave me alone!’

  He caught her shoulders and held her. ‘Liv, I won’t take much of your time, but there’s something I need to tell you and you need to hear it—’

  ‘No! No, I don’t!’

  She tried to spin away from him, but his grip suddenly tightened and he tried to pull her back.

  ‘Liv, no!’ he yelled, his voice urgent, but the urgency was lost on her as she wrenched her arm away and stumbled backwards off the kerb out of reach.

  She saw the look of horror on his face, heard the blast of a horn, saw the car as it clipped her and sent her spinning, and then her head hit the ground and everything went black...

  * * *

  He watched helplessly as the car struck her, saw her fall, saw her head bouncing off the kerb as she came to rest just inches from the front wheel. The big SUV had ground to a halt and the driver stumbled out, other people ran towards them shouting, but his eyes were only for Liv.

  She was lying motionless on the edge of the road like a broken doll, her head level with the front wheel, her feet partly under the car just inches from the rear wheel, and for a terrifying second he thought she was dead.

  Her hair had tumbled over
her face and he dropped to his knees beside her, sweeping the hair aside to check for a pulse in her neck, but his own heart was beating so hard he could scarcely feel hers and his breath jammed in his throat.

  ‘Liv? Liv, talk to me, for God’s sake!’

  He found a pulse and dragged in a breath, digging out the doctor instead of the lover, running his hands over her quickly, checking that she was breathing, scanning her for injuries, but her limbs were all straight, her pupils were equal and reactive, her breathing was normal. For now. But she was unconscious, and that could mean anything.

  He needed help, and fast. He tugged his phone out of his pocket with shaking fingers and rang the ED direct. ‘One of our midwives has been knocked down near the staff car park and she’s unconscious. Send a team out here now, please, fast. Tell them they’ll need a collar and board and a pelvic band. And hurry.’

  She started to stir, and he dropped the phone and reached out, bracketing her head carefully in his hands and holding it steady, feeling the stickiness of blood on his fingers as they burrowed through her hair. No...

  ‘Easy, Liv. Try not to move. I’ve called for help. Just stay as still as you can.’

  ‘Nick?’

  She knew him. Thank God...

  ‘It’s OK, Liv, I’ve got you, my love. I’ve got you. They’ll be here soon. You’ll be OK. Just keep still for me, sweetheart.’

  ‘My head hurts...’

  ‘I know, darling, I know, but they’ll be here soon. Just hang on another minute. It won’t be long.’

  ‘Over here,’ someone yelled, and then the crowd that had gathered around them parted as the trauma team arrived.

  He looked up without moving his hands. ‘She was KOed briefly, she’s got a head wound, and you’ll need a collar and a board. GCS three at first, now fourteen. She’s concussed, almost certainly whiplashed and she could have pelvic and spinal injuries—and mind her legs. I don’t know if they were hit,’ he said unsteadily, and then someone took over the control of her head and neck and he found himself gently shifted out of the way. Someone backed the car away very carefully to give them better access, and as soon as her spine was immobilised they moved her onto a stretcher, then up onto the trolley for the short trundle to the ED doors.